


Questions of Faith

by FunkyinFishnet



Category: Power Rangers Lost Galaxy
Genre: Afterlife, Character of Faith, F/M, Friendship, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, Loss, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-06
Updated: 2010-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyinFishnet/pseuds/FunkyinFishnet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maya can't sleep and comes across Mike, who has questions about spirits and the afterlife. They don't find answers, but find their way in the dark together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questions of Faith

Terra Venture always maintained a carefully controlled silence at night. Even the machinery that ran the colony was somehow muted. It felt strange and empty to Maya. She was used to the organic sounds of Mirinoi shifting and breathing around her. She couldn't hear them any more.

She could hear Kendrix's breaths, steady and reassuring. It never took her friend long to find sleep, exhausted from her long days in the science department and Ranger training. She gave so much of herself, it was only right she should gain a deep sleep.

Maya slid out of her bunk, bare feet against a too-cold floor. The door opened with only a quiet hiss. There would no one else around, except for those who kept watch.

The Galactabeasts were asleep too. She could feel their heavy heartbeats and calm centred spirits. Maya drifted towards them, becoming enveloped in the welcoming comfort they gave so selflessly. They felt her spirit too. She let them guide her.

Maya closed her eyes. If she searched, she would find grief, thick and gushing like a river. Her world was gone. And the people there, her families, her friends. It was a nightmare, made flesh and then turned to stone.

But there was hope too. The sabres were pulled from the rock, the stories were coming true, and the Rangers were fighting off Scorpius. She had new friends and family, a new world.

Her home was still so very far away. She still could not sleep.

The dome where the plants and foliage grew was welcoming, reassuring and chittering with noise. Maya breathed it in. She had slept here before many times, needing to feel the earth under her feet and between her fingers. It was as close as she could have to sleeping under the stars, to a connection, however faint, to her absent home.

There was a movement off to the left, beside the waterfall. Maya saw Mike lift his head.

Her footsteps were deliberately audible as she padded over to him. There were white flowers, delicate and shimmering, clenched in his hands. They weren't native to Mirinoi, but Maya felt a memory of them whispering to her.

"Can't sleep either?" guessed Mike with a tired smile.

"It's too quiet," Maya sat down beside him, their knees touching. "I find it easier here."

Mike nodded, looking around. "Yeah, I know what you mean, it's like……"

Maya let the silence roll on as his words halted. She breathed, tasting twilight and all the lush tones of the greenery surrounding her. She knew why she found it soothing. But Mike's answer would be different, everyone's was.

He had been on a journey. To death and back. Shared his spirit with another. And something had dragged him out of rest tonight, and troubled his expression.

Maya would receive whatever he felt able to share. The Terrans' lives were so full; things got hidden away and left unspoken. There weren't many who had walked Mike's path, but hers was close by. If he didn't want to be alone, he did not have to be. Maya made the same choice everyday.

"Sometimes I think I can see them, the Defender and Zika," Mike admitted into the quiet at last, shaking his head. "I can hear them too. They're talking."

"What do they say?"

There was a pause. Maya could feel silky flowers at her feet, grass at her fingertips. There was safety and serenity here.

"Mostly, it's like I'm not there," Mike ventured. "They don't see me or they ignore me and they're talking about Zika's mother and their home and the war. Zika's trying to understand."

Maya nodded. On Mirinoi, the children wove the remembrance wreaths given to the families of the lost. They listened to the stories about that person's life and death, and they greeted the setting sun with everyone else as they bade that fallen spirit a safe journey on. The Terrans taught their children differently.

"And other times……I don't know, I think they're talking to me," Mike added.

He focused on the flowers for a while, his fingers brushing the shining petals.

"They always come for these flowers."

_Spirit Seer_.

He was blessed. Maya smiled at him, flooded by warmth at the thought. He had chosen to try and save Mirinoi, to jump into this unknown. He had given his life for it and been granted a second one. And he was lonely, seeking spirits and answers in the night time. Maya understood that. She was glad she could listen. That he was there beside her.

"You haven't lost them," Maya was gentle in the soft darkness. "It's a great honour amongst my people when a spirit chooses to stay."

Mike scratched his head with a rueful laugh. There was something grateful and relieved about him, under the pain and confusion. The struggle was still there and he was opting, in the darkness and quiet, to continue sharing it.

"I don't want to doubt what I'm seeing."

"You shared your spirit with him, and showed him a different way to honour the dead. Because of you, he's with his son."

Everyone was blessed by their loved ones' spirits before the passing ceremony, some even afterwards. There'd been a girl on Mirinoi, Althea, who could see her mother and sister after they had died. The elders had said that Althea had been given a great gift. They had been there during Scorpius's attack on Mirioni. Althea had been screaming; talking to what no other could see.

"You know, back on Earth, we all knew about the Rangers," Mike said thoughtfully. "But this…..I wouldn't have believed.

"Why?"

Mike paused. Maya pressed her knee against his. She could feel his painful fight to connect the lives he'd lived, Mike and the Defender, two entirely different worlds and philosophies.

"Has Leo told you about our parents?"

Maya shook her head. The only family Leo had spoken of was Mike, he was the most important.

"They died when Leo was really young. It was a stupid road accident," Mike's was face full of memories. "I used to tell Leo our parents were watching over us."

He paused and Maya's fingers grazed his. She could remember her mother's last visit, the smell of the crushed berries that she'd spread across Maya's cheeks for the passing ceremony. She'd held Maya's hand for a moment, pressing it to her heart. Maya had felt the sweet breeze across her skin, her mother's words in her ear – a lullaby, a story, a prophecy - and then she was alone, to face the horizon with her people. Her father had never returned the next day, his heart had cracked into too many pieces.

Mike found his voice again. "When I fell down that canyon, before the Defender found me, I don't remember what I saw. But there was something."

He'd been dying. He would have moved on and she would never have known him as more than the man who had believed her and led his friends to help. It would have been a great loss.

"I didn't see my parents."

Maya was close against his side. He was warm and solid, and so was she. She could feel his breath in her hair.

Her people were stuck between lives, unable to move on. Worlds were colliding and new stories being written. Mike was trying to make one life out of two. The old questions were still being asked. There was so much along the path, beyond the horizon, so many different answers and griefs. So much unknown. Hollow empty spaces and this. She squeezed his hand and breathed him in. They weren't alone.

Somewhere close by, the Wolf called softly to her. The Torozord was glad to be back with the rest of the pack. She wished that Kendrix could hear the Wildcat.

"I can hear the Galactabeasts, and sometimes, it's like home," she told Mike quietly. "But the stars are different.

The ache was still there inside her. It was part of her. The white flowers glimmered. Her memories stirred again and a song surfaced, with the scent of berries and the soft sensation of ferns and the bitter yellow creases of the wreath. She hummed. Mike stayed with her.

_-the end_


End file.
